An Affair to Remember

The godfather of glossy Hollywood three-hankie weepies stars Cary Grant as a smooth playboy and Deborah Kerr as a cynical ex-chanteuse whose shipboard romance blossoms into love, to their great surprise. Just to complicate things, they separate for six months to test their devotion with a promise to meet up again at the top of the Empire State Building. Some romances are simply beyond the abilities of mere men to grasp. This glossy, mannered 1957 melodrama, defined by the hokiest of tragic twists and carved in CinemaScope and Technicolor by director Leo McCarey, is loved by a nation of women. Just for the record, this is a remake of McCarey's own 1939 "Love Affair" (with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer), and it was remade again under that title in 1994. The two-disc set features commentary by Marni Nixon (who dubbed all of Kerr's singing) and film historian Joseph McBride, the 24-minute "AMC Backstory: An Affair to Remember," featurettes on the stars and creators, and newsreel coverage of the premiere among the supplements.